Eating Only One Meal per Day for Bodybuilding
Bodybuilding on one meal a day might sound like a contradiction when you read the generally accepted rhetoric of eating as many times a day as possible. But the truth about intermittent fasting or eating like a lion that eats good quality protein and fat only once a day makes a lot of sense for many bodybuilders who could not be bothered about planning the next meal all day.
It is based on the fact that we all have an 8 hour eating window and a 16 hour fasting window every day. If good quality lean steak and eggs are eaten only once a day between 1pm and 8pm you will not get hungry as no insulin will be released to lower blood sugar without eating carbs.
When you stabilize your blood sugar eating only once a day you will not be affected by the sugar crashes and upswings associated with eating carbs during your day. Obviously if you eat junk you will get junk so the quality of the protein and fat you eat when you do eat once a day is vitally important.
The advocates of bodybuilding eating only one meal a day recommend a cheat meal once a week where you eat whenever and whatever you like once a week. The principal is based on the fact that you look like what you eat every day and not what you eat once a week.
Just like the lion in the jungle is able to pack on a massive amount of muscle only eating once every two or three days, the intermittent eating of only one meal a day will give you all the required protein needed to repair muscle. Ideally the meal you eat will be after your workout.
There are some great bodybuilders like the massively muscled Serge Nubret who only ate once a day. He would scoff down 4 or 5 pounds of meat with brown rice and beans after each long hard workout he did. The advocates of this one meal bodybuilding say that it needs to be assumed that you will not waste time being concerned or worried about not eating enough.
A simple calculation working out your daily protein requirements will tell you exactly how much protein you need every day if you are training with weights. If you cannot pack it all into one meal then take a break for a couple of hours and return to finish it off.
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